by Jane Caro
‘Aye, sister,’ she said, leaning back into her chair and sighing like a lovesick girl. ‘You guess aright. I am happy that my desire coincides with my duty. For I must marry and produce heirs for England – good Catholic princes, who will continue my mission to return this country to the true church. Only one thought troubles me.’
‘What is it, madam?’ I had also moved away from the fire, so she could not see my face. I could not answer for the composure of my features. A child for Mary meant the end of hope for me.
‘Will he like me for a wife, think you?’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper and her diffidence tugged at my heart. My poor sister, great queen or no, God’s anointed one or no, was a frightened woman, conscious of her age and her lack of charms. ‘Would that he had seen me ten years ago, when I was but a light and carefree girl. I would not have feared his coming so. Now my hair is grey, my teeth are few and my cares many. He is young and likely disposed to be amorous. At my time of life and never having harboured thoughts of love, that is not my desire.’
‘Nay, madam,’ I said, reaching for her hand. ‘If he be as wise and goodly a prince as you say, he will think very well of you as a wife.’
‘Flatterer.’ She tossed the greying hair that she wore loose down her back, as befit a maid, but she was pleased. Her careworn face lit up with hope and excitement in the firelight and my heart was touched. ‘Well, should he think ill of me or no, ’tis done, and before next year is out, I shall be married to Philip of Spain.’
She took a large jewelled ring from her pocket and slid it over her finger, flashing it at me so that it caught the flame. ‘It is his token,’ she said. ‘I keep it hidden till the morrow, when the tidings of the queen’s betrothal will be carried far and wide. But you are my sister, my only living relative, and it is right that you know.’
‘I am honoured, Your Majesty, and delighted at your happiness.’ I stood up, curtsied and she held out her new ring to be kissed.
‘We will make a good Catholic of you yet, my husband and I, my heretic sister, and God and all the angels will rejoice when it is done.’ With that, she lifted me from my knees, threw her arms about me and kissed me heartily.
Yet even in the blaze of her great happiness, I felt a cold shivering through my innards – not just for the obstacles such a wedding could place in the way of my own fate, either. As I have said, I hate all this marrying. No good ever comes of it.
I was not the only person who feared this marriage, either. A Catholic queen was threat enough to the Protestant lords, but a Catholic queen married to the most powerful Catholic prince in Christendom was not to be borne.
As the disquiet around my sister’s betrothal intensified, so did her sense of insecurity. And, as she grew more wary and suspicious, so her previously mercurial attitude towards me, her heretic sister, hardened and grew colder. The realities of rule are harsh: the allies you need to help you gain power are often the very people you see as your enemies once you have it. And so it soon became between Queen Mary and me.
The whisperings of insurrection and disapproval grew at court. As rumours of secret meetings at the Duke of Suffolk’s London home circled giddily from nobleman to nobleman, so my situation at my sister’s court deteriorated. Within days of our quiet and intimate conversation, to my bewildered astonishment and growing alarm, I found myself once again losing precedence. I was told that my cousin Margaret, Countess of Lennox, was to take my place at banquets and gatherings. When I sought to voice my displeasure, I found my access to my sister barred. She was always ‘regretfully’ too busy to see me, no matter when I tried. Whenever I sent invitations to her, they were refused under the pretext that she was too preoccupied with affairs of state for socialising.
The confidential moment we had shared before the fire, it seemed, was to be our last, at least for the foreseeable future. No longer did my sister seek out my company. At first I blamed her ministers for the new and mysterious rift between us. It was always the stern-faced Bishop Gardiner, newly released from the Tower, who seemed to bar my way to her. If I could just find my way round him, I reassured myself, I could retrieve the recent sisterly intimacy that had seemed to bode so well. Now, as a queen myself, I know that ministers work on instructions. My way to my sister was barred because she herself had commanded it. Stephen Gardiner might well have been my enemy, but he was doing my sister’s bidding.
My bewilderment did not turn into real fear, however, until I heard she had begun to deny publicly our blood tie. My enemies and, yea, many of my friends, delighted in telling me that she took every opportunity to remark on my resemblance to Mark Smeaton, the musician who had been executed for adultery with my mother. I could not understand what had undone the good beginning we had made. Much as I wanted to, I could not quite believe it was the work of evil tongues alone. Sometimes I wondered if it had something to do with her forthcoming marriage – not the political, but the human ramifications of the union. Skulking in my apartments, I dwelt on our last conversation. She had been so quick to show jealousy, and her insecurity about her charms haunted me. Perhaps she did not wish to have a younger and prettier sister too close to hand when her bridegroom arrived. And with a Catholic husband, she would soon have no further need of me. Whatever the real reasons, I felt the chill wind of royal disfavour. Whereas once many eyes smiled upon me because hers did, now there were none. I kept to my corner of Richmond Palace, unless I received word that I might catch sight of her and beg an audience. But even if I happened to find myself in the right place at the right time, I could no longer see and speak to her in a private fashion, and she treated me as coolly as any other anxious, out of favour petitioner.
Eventually my alarm grew to such a pitch I asked for a private audience. To refuse such a formal request I knew was unlikely. She granted it, but signalled her reluctance by allowing me to speak to her only on the wrong side of a half-door in the corner of one of the galleries.
‘Your Majesty,’ I said falling to my knees, as she approached. The cold expression on her face chilled me horribly and I could not help tears filling my eyes and rolling unbidden down my face. I knew myself to be truly out of favour and, therefore, in great danger. This was no womanish whim or passing mood. My sister now saw me as a potential enemy.
‘Lady Elizabeth,’ she said, in a voice so formal she could have been speaking to a stranger, and a distasteful one at that. ‘What do you want from me?’ At this, I could restrain myself no longer and burst into noisy sobs. I was terrified.
‘Oh Madam, I have hesitated to – I have been afraid – but I – I can see only too clearly – I feel you are no longer well disposed towards me, good Madam, and this is a mystery to me. Would that I knew what has caused you to look upon me so coldly. I have searched my memory and examined my conduct and know not how I have displeased you. But I have followed Your Majesty’s good example and searched my soul, and now I feel it can only be our difference in religion that has caused this rift between us.’
‘Heresy is distressing to all who follow the true church.’ Still she would not unbend towards me.
‘But, madam, in your mercy you must excuse my ignorance. You know better than any other living that I was brought up in the way I was and have never been taught the doctrine of the ancient faith.’ I paused, but she merely continued to gaze upon me, her face still stiff with suspicion and disapproval. ‘Please, madam, send me books contrary to those I have always read and known hitherto, so I can see if my conscience will be persuaded. Or send me a learned man to instruct me in the truth.’
‘I will do as you ask, Elizabeth. God welcomes all who can be guided out of the darkness into the light.’
And so I began to read the books she sent me, and to listen to the religious instruction of one of her priests, and the more I learnt of the Catholic faith, the more I felt there was only one Christ Jesus and one faith; the rest was a dispute about trifles. Had I been able to do so without n
otice being taken, I would happily have attended mass and partaken of its rituals, for my own safety and my sister’s satisfaction. But my task was a more complex one than mere religion. I must appear to one side to be attempting conversion sincerely and to the other to be just as sincerely resisting it. Unlike my sister, I had no instinct for martyrdom; mine was all for survival. So I attended mass no more often than I could avoid and took refuge in ill health, so that people could read into my behaviour what they wished. And, indeed, those men who were wont to hate me claimed my conversion to be all show and sham, and those who preferred to love me agreed with them, to the satisfaction of both sides.
But all my efforts and tears were in vain. I soon had evidence that the queen had begun to believe reports that I intrigued against her. She sent the Earl of Arundel and Lord Paget to warn me against continuing the secret consultations I was supposed to be having with the French ambassador. I assured them such warnings were unnecessary. I had held no consultations with the ambassador, secret or otherwise. After some anxious weeks, unable to bear the atmosphere of dread and suspicion any longer, and much troubled by my old dreams of my mother and Queen Katharine Howard, I sought my sister’s permission to leave the court and retire to the country. Eager though I was to leave, I knew my absence would make it even easier for my enemies to further poison the queen’s mind against me. Nevertheless, my presence clearly made her insecurity worse. I could see no point in remaining on the periphery of court, impotent witness to the ill-natured and ill-informed whispering campaign against me, yet powerless to do anything to stop it and protect myself.
My vain hope was that my absence from court would lead to a corresponding absence from my sister’s mind. If I could not be thought of kindly, I did not wish to be thought of at all. The heir to the throne could not simply slink away, however. Before I departed, protocol (and wisdom) demanded that I seek an audience with the Queen to reassure her of my loyalty and to try and remind her of the intimacy we had enjoyed such a short time ago. I was afraid of Mary, and my fear of her grew all the while. I know now, however, that she was equally afraid of me.
She granted my request for audience, but the moment I found myself in her presence, I knew that any attempt to rekindle favour was doomed to fail. She smiled at me, right enough, and stood and raised me to my feet as I bowed low before her on her throne, but her eyes glittered with distaste as she looked at me, and she was straining to smile. From girlhood, my poor sister had always found it hard to lie convincingly. Her heart sat always upon her face, a fatal characteristic for those who must practise statecraft. ‘Lady Elizabeth,’ she said, ‘I hear you are to leave us.’
‘Aye, Your Majesty, I have affairs to attend to.’
‘Indeed, ’tis a pity you have no husband to take care of such masculine business for you. I await impatiently the day when I can share my burdens with a member of the stronger sex.’
‘Your Majesty knows well my thoughts on one day having a husband.’
‘Aye, Elizabeth, but they are surely only the coy dissembling of an unmarried woman, said to mislead the listener into believing that you have chosen your virginal state. But I do not wish to parry words with you, my lady. You asked to see me and so you do. You know what calls there are upon my time, so what did you wish to speak to me about?’
‘Nothing of import, Your Majesty, merely as sister to sister to say farewell and to give you my good wishes for your forthcoming nuptials.’
‘Commendable, very commendable, I daresay.’
I ignored her undisguised scepticism and ploughed hopelessly on. ‘And to reassure Your Majesty that I intend to continue with my instruction in the articles of the Catholic faith, when I am away from court and earnestly desire to understand the errors of my ways and convert with a full and open heart, as I know Your Majesty equally desires me to do.’
‘So you say, sister, so you say, and I commend your studies and leave your conversion to God’s good grace and your own conscience. You will attend mass, regularly?’
‘Of course, Your Majesty.’
‘Of course, it is the law.’
‘Not just because it is the law – because you wish it and because I wish it also.’
‘Well said, Elizabeth, but then you have always been adept at saying things well.’
‘They are not mere words, Your Majesty, however well put. I can understand your caution, for there are words spoken at court that contain not one iota of truth. Indeed, those who are my enemies speak some of those empty words; they speak words that impugn my loyalty and my intentions. They tell stories about me that have no basis in fact and I fear that when I have left the court, they will feel even freer to tell such stories, because I will not be here to naysay them.’
‘Do you think me such a fool, Elizabeth, that I do not know whose words to believe and whose words to doubt?’
‘I do not think you a fool at all, madam, but I am afraid of what you may be led to think of me.’
‘If you are what you say you are, Elizabeth, then you have nothing to fear. God knows the secrets of your heart and He will not forsake you if you are as innocent as you claim.’
‘Indeed, madam, then I have nothing to fear.’
‘I am glad of it. Here, let us not quarrel.’ She signalled to the ladies behind her and a parcel was handed forward. ‘I have brought you this as a symbol of my affection for you.’ She passed it over to me and
I unwrapped it. Inside was a rich coif of sable. It was beautiful and it made me smile.
‘Ah, madam,’ I said, ‘you have always seen that I am well apparelled. For as long as I have had memory, that is my recollection of you.’ I was trying to remind her of the Elizabeth she had once known: the small girl whose skirt was too short, whose kirtle was too tight and whose white and skinny wrists hung down far below the unravelling lace of her sleeves.
‘You have less need of my help, these days, it seems, and now have many friends of your own. They look to you, perhaps, in ways they should not.’
My hopes sank. ‘I have some friends, it is true, but none as dear to me as you.’
‘Well, dear or not, I can dally here no longer. So farewell, Elizabeth. I wish you a safe journey and commend your soul and your conduct to God.’ With that she would have turned to go, but I managed to delay her for one more moment.
‘May I crave Your Majesty’s indulgence for one final request?’
She turned back to me, but made no attempt to disguise her impatience. ‘What now, my lady?’
‘My chapel at Hatfield is bereft of the symbols of the true faith, Your Majesty, and I am unpleasantly conscious of its inadequacy. Could you not send me such ornaments as you deem appropriate for the worship of the Lord God?’
‘I will arrange for the appropriate objects to be sent.’ Impatient to be gone, she nodded. ‘Farewell, Elizabeth. Watch those whom you make your friends. I will pray for you.’
The audience on which I had pinned such hopes had been a failure. That afternoon, I left court for Ashridge.
In my absence, the dark clouds around the Spanish marriage gathered apace. The people grumbled, the nobility swore and cursed and some did worse. A group of conspirators began to plan an insurrection and saw fit to drag my name into their plot. Full glad I was that I had retired to Ashridge, where I hoped to keep my head low and avoid the worst of the queen’s suspicions. Nevertheless, news reached me daily: whisperings and rumours of rebellion, miracles and witchcraft flew across the countryside. I listened to every story, discounting most, but aware that, wholly against my will, I was being dragged into a perilous vortex not of my own making. Marooned in the country as I was, my fears and feelings of powerlessness grew so intense that I fell ill. I fulminated against the foolish arrogance of those who claimed to plot in my name, cursing them to Kat, to Master Parry, the men who brought me news from court – any who would listen – but to no avail. It would never be my way
to scheme against an anointed queen, I told them, yet I could do nothing. If I protested against the rumours that circulated about me, I merely cast more suspicion on myself. If I said nothing, it was seen as tacit approval. In my desperation, my arms and legs began to ache from morning to night. My sister’s fears of my charms outshining hers were soon unnecessary, as the fever of my mind caused my whole body to bloat with dropsy and I lay miserable and helpless as a whale on my sickbed. Whatever the queen and the court thought of my loyalty, they could not deny the legitimacy of my illness.
But the conspirators, base fools that they were, refused to leave me to my sufferings and urged me to go to Donnington Castle, beyond the reach of my sister. Before I had a chance to refuse, both because I was too ill to go anywhere and because such an act would have condemned me utterly as a traitor, I received a message from Mary warning me not to go and ordering me to come to London for my own protection. I cursed her excellent spies. Now, no matter how much I assured her I had never intended to go to Donnington and had given no support to those planning the uprising, she would never believe me. My only comfort was that I was too ill to travel. I stayed where I was.
The uprising failed, as I knew it would. The conspirators were eager, but the country was not with them. The people had too recently restored my sister to her rightful throne and, regardless of her Spanish marriage, they had no intention of seeing her unseated so soon. The leader of the conspiracy, Thomas Wyatt, was arrested and a deputation of councillors was despatched to bring me to London. I greeted them in my sickbed and could see they were shocked by my appearance as I struggled to sit up. ‘As you can see, my lords, I am in no state to travel anywhere.’
‘Forgive us, my lady, but our orders are to convey you to London, no matter how indisposed you may be. There are matters of great importance that you must answer.’
‘Put the matters to me and I shall answer them here.’
